Allred defeats Johnson in runoff for redrawn U.S. House seat in North Texas
1:25 p.m., May 27, 2026: This story was updated to include a statement from U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson.
Former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred beat incumbent U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson in Tuesday’s runoff for a newly drawn North Texas district in a race that turned the onetime Democratic allies against each other.
Vote returns showed Allred besting Johnson by nearly 8 percentage points, a victory the Dallas Democrat called a "clear message."
"They redrew the maps to make us disappear, but this community showed up anyway and made its voice heard," Allred said in a statement late Tuesday. "That is who we are."
The intraparty fight — one of the most closely watched this cycle — for the Dallas-based District 33 stems from a Republican-led redrawing of Texas’ congressional map aimed at maintaining the party’s narrow majority in Washington. Allred, the former NFL linebacker and three-term congressman, previously vacated his seat to run unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2024.
The district strongly favors Dem…